


In the Hall of Records

by swaneewhistleandkazoo



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Insecure Newt Scamander, Insecure Tina Goldtein, Love, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, POV Newt Scamander, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 09:51:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17020413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swaneewhistleandkazoo/pseuds/swaneewhistleandkazoo
Summary: This isn’t how he’d thought he’d reunite with Tina, for one thing he’d thought she’d be happy to see him and not labouring under the impression he was engaged to his brother’s fiancé.Or Newt PoV of Salamander Eyes scene





	In the Hall of Records

**Author's Note:**

> This is just my take on Newt thoughts during this scene. Most of the dialogue I took from the screen play.

It is really amazing what one particular word from one specific person can do to him.

Especially if that word is “Fiancé”

And the person half whispering it is the witch that sent him, as socially inept as he is, head over heels in love with her.

He’s half amazed at his own boldness to claim that Tina is Leta, after all the two could not be more different, apparently borrowing Theseus’s identity makes him bolder.

Fiancé from her lips implies a lot of things, his traitorous mind whispers as Tina grins uneasily at the white hair stern looking witch. It implies intimacy, closeness, connection even love between them. Something he’s never really received and hasn’t really concerned him until he met her. And that Tina is misunderstanding his regard for her and that she has now put him firmly outside of her life, the absence of her good opinion of him has sent him spinning, desperate to regain their connection but unable to force out how he feels about her and make thing better between them.

Stupid Magazine, Stupid Ministry, Stupid Auror guy, Stupid Situation, Stupid Newt.

This isn’t how he’d thought he’d see her again. Lying in his narrow bed in his basement so he was close to his creatures, unable to sleep he’d let himself imagine how it would be. What they’d do, the things they’d say to each other. Wondering if she’d like his book? Sometimes they’d go and visit Jacob and he’d remember them and they’d all be happy.

Occasionally his imagination had raced into overdrive and he’d gotten caught up in more fantastical scenarios more like those ridiculous over the top romance novels that his mother was far too fond of than reality. Some were definitely inappropriate half day dreams which he’d had to rapidly blot out and flushing and frustratedly recite to himself the twelve uses of dragon blood.

Somehow even his wildest imaginings hadn’t managed to come up with a semi-botched rescue attempt in the Parisian catacombs, an extraction of a water dragon parasite from their attempted captor’s eye, them breaking god only knows how many laws and becoming mixed up in whatever shenanigans that Grindelwald was engineering “For the greater good” hadn’t come up once.

In most of his imaginings she’d at least been happy to see him again.

Instead it seems most of the time she’s wants to kick him in the shins.

She’d also tied Theseus to a chair which was a memory he’d gleefully tucked away in a corner of his mind to relive in great detail the next time someone compared him unfavourable to his brother.

And now he’s lying through his teeth, very badly he’s certain the stern looking white hair witch looks like she doesn’t believe a word either of them are saying or that could just be how her face works he’s never understood the French, to try to help his…. Tina just Tina she isn’t his anything at the moment.

Amazingly the Witch allows them to enter the Hall of Records and Tina strides briskly off with him bobbling along in her wake into the gloomy forbidding tree like shelves of the French Ministries’ Hall of Records.

Tina’s the same yet different from how he remembers her. She’s partially radiant, well she’s always been radiant, but now she’s exuding confidence, intensity and power as she’s regained her job and main purpose in life and which only make her more beautiful to him. But her inherent compassionate nature, kindness and just a little sadness shines through in equal amounts by softening the edges of the armour of her auror’s coat gives her, which fits her very well he might add as it compliments her tall slender frame and he can’t imagine anyone looking better than her in it, as much as she might try to hide it behind a veneer of professionalism.

He has to find a way to straighten things out between them, so they could at least remain friends. “Tina” Unbidden, unwanted and completely at the wrong time but unable to stop himself the words escape from him “About that Fiancée business”

The doors slam shut behind them “Sorry, yeah” Tina refused to look at him sending a ball of light to alleviate the dimness of the room “I really should have congratulated you” She sounded so brittle, so hurt, he’s caused her that pain and he hates that he’s the reason for it. _Just say it_ His mind orders him _Just tell her that you love her and admire her, that this is all one big misunderstand that Theseus is marrying Leta and that you want her to stay with you have lots of babies together._

As always what he wants to say gets lost in transit between his brain and his tongue and all he can get out is “Tina about Leta…” before she interrupts him her voice sharp, frustrated and breaking as she struggles to remain in control of her emotions. “I just said I’m happy for you…”

White hot fury bloomed inside his skull giving him something akin to confidence, he’s missed her so much and he can tell from the curl of a smile whenever he does or says something that amuses her that she’s missed him as much as he’s missed her. He doesn’t want her to be happy for him and Leta, that ship sailed a long time ago, he doesn’t want her to be happy with this Achilles fellow, he wants them to be happy together. Hang the rest of the world.

What had Jacob told him told him to say? Why on earth couldn’t he remember?

“Yeah, well, don’t” Its more forcefully than he meant it to be and make him sound so much like a complete wanker that he could kick himself. When Queenie had told him that Tina had started seeing someone else it had been like a rug had been pulled from under his feet and left him swimming in bitter jealously and loss. Then the self recriminations had started at himself for being envious and mentally berated himself. Only the worst sort of man wouldn’t want the women he loves to be happy even if it isn’t with him so from that point onwards he’d resolved silently, as Queenie cut Jacob’s carrots up for him, that he would endeavour to support Tina in whatever made her happy even if it cut him to the core.

“Please don’t be happy” His bravado falters and died completely at her confusion and his wand slips from his fumbling fingers, the clatter making them both jump. Great now he’s dropping his wand like a bumbling fool or a love struck school boy.

Panicking slightly as he stoops to retrieve his wand unable to stop the apology and attempted explanation that he did want her to be happy from tumbling out of his mouth. “Uh, no, no. I’m sorry.” He can feel his face twitch “I don’t… Uhm obviously I…. Obviously I want you to be...”

It hurts too much.

_Being happy for her starts now_ he told himself firmly but it was like trying to hold an enraged griffin at arm’s length when all it wanted to do was claw his face off “And I hear you are now, Uh which is wonderful. Sorry….”He can’t but trail off as the hopelessness of the situation almost overwhelms him as his shoulders helplessly up toward his ears and stinging tears prick up behind his eyes but he has to finish what he’s trying to say or he’ll regret it for the rest of his life.

“What I’m trying to say is” He swallowed hard wrangling his errant emotions back into control “Is that I want you to be happy, but I don’t want you to be happy because I’m happy because I’m not…” She looking at him with confusion written all over her pale fine features, there’s tiny sparks of fire dancing in her dark eyes, she so beautiful inside and out. How can she think that he’d be content with anyone else?

“…Happy”

She’s still confused, this is one of the few times he wishes to be just a little bit more like his Brother, Theseus always, always knows what to say. Then it hits him that he’s never actually told her what was probably the most important part of this conversation.

“Or Engaged”

Complete and total shock flashes through her dark eyes, someone told him once that eyes were the window to the soul and he hadn’t believed that until he’d met Tina with her lovely dark eyes. She truly had believed that he hadn’t wanted her and it spoke a lot about poorly she’s been treated in the past. Although why she believed that women found him completely irresistible and he had to beat them off with a stick, it was a ludicrous idea.

_Because_ his mind whispered slyly the idea permeating his brain _she thinks that you’re wonderful and that of course other women are going to see it too._

He entertained that idea for a moment before ploughing on with his explanation “It was a mistake in a stupid magazine. My brother’s marrying Leta, June the sixth. I’m supposed to be best man, which is mildly hilarious”

When Theseus had asked him to be his best man he’d half expected it to be one of his practical jokes expect that Theseus kept asking him his opinion on the seating arrangements and his vows and actually listened to his suggestions.

Although part of him was still had its suspicions.

“Does he think you’re here to win her back?” There is a disbelieving ferocity that sharpness her posture, she looks bit like an Antipodean Opaleye coiling up to strike, with her smooth skin like its pearly scales and eyes flashing with dark fire, about to bath him in her fire “Are you here to win her back?”

Her stubbornness is one of the things he loves about her but sometime she’s to tenacious, gripping onto an idea like a Crup with a muggles ankle.

He knows he’s staring at her, that it’s rude and you shouldn’t stare at people as it makes them uncomfortable, but he can’t help it. She’s here, close to him and even though it’s been dented the connection between them, the understanding they share of the others personality and emotions is there and it’s thrumming between them. Her eyes really are stunning, so dark they’re almost black in most lights and deep like you could look forever and never find the sandy bottom. Yet at the same time they burn, dancing with dark fire. Once in Greece one night he’d seen the waves hitting the coast creating each wave had created flashes of light, bioluminescence he’d found out later but the it had been so beautiful had made him stop and watch for hours. Or watching magical salamanders folic in the Great Lake during his time at Hogwarts after sneaking out after hours, watching tiny glimpses of fire twisting and dancing in the infinite mysterious darkness. Her fire in dark water eyes. Her salamander eyes.

“You know your eyes really are…” He’s not supposed to say it, Jacob told him specifically not to mention his “compliment” to her but here in the private semi darkness, her eyes captivating him holding him willingly hypnotised and they’re pulling the words out of him.

Tentatively Tina took half a step towards him, body subtlety softening and opening up, her eyes brightening with hope. “What?” She asked him very softly.

His mouth curls up in a half smile “I’m not supposed to say”

They both speak in a rush at the same time; really they are cut from the same cloth.

“Newt, I read your book and did you-?"

“I got this picture of you” Fingers trembling and with infinite care he pulled it from his pocket. He’d cut it out of the newspaper, feeling vaguely guilty about having a picture of a girl that didn’t know he had it, but unwilling to part with her image, to not have her with him, hopefully she won’t find him a creep for having it.

The revelation that she’d read his book hit on the upside of the head making him dizzy with delight. “Wait did you read…?” before trailing off because he wants to know if she liked his book? If what he’s written make any sense? If she thinks it’s any good? If she doesn’t mind her title being used for his book?

Instead he contents himself for now in gently unfolding his little cut out of Tina that he’d faithfully carried with him all this time even if she’d never known it. Half afraid she won’t be pleased with him he chances a quick glance at her face to gage her reaction. She looks…. Touched…. delighted even and that gives him the courage to say what he’d always wanted to say.

After all you are supposed to compliment your girl on how beautiful she it, even he knows that.

“I got this… I mean, its just a picture of you from the newspaper, but it’s interesting because your eyes in newsprint…” At first he’d been content just to have her likeness until he’d noticed that the photo reduced the fire in dark water effect in her eyes as real Tina’s did and after that it just made him feel her absence more acutely.

“See in reality they have this effect in them, Tina…” He doesn’t see anything wrong with her having eyes just like a salamander, because they are striking and inexplicable miracles of nature, just like she it. “It’s like fire in water, in dark water. I’ve only ever seen that…”

He’s really struggling now, trying to find a way to tell her how he feels without mentioning salamanders, because Jacob is right you really shouldn’t relate women with amphibians he should have remembered he learnt that lesson when he was five and got pushed into a pond.

Embarrassed that he’s stuttering and twitching with nervous he manages to force out before Jacob’s advice echoes in his ears stopping him in his tracks “I’ve only ever seen that in… in…”

She so close to him now he can feel her breath on his cheek, if he was brave enough he would lean forward and press his forehead against hers. She looks like she’s going to cry, eyes gleaming almost overflowing with tears, happy or sad one he can’t tell.

Very slowly like she’s afraid he’d going to bolt, she leant forwards and softly whispered her voice filled with wonder “Salamanders” completing his sentence for him and the beginnings of a smile are starting to curl up the corners of her lips.

He blinks, a long slow heavy blink full of surprise. After a lifetime of being misunderstood and things he says being taken the wrong way, it always catches him off guard that she understands him, that she relates to him. It shouldn’t surprise him anymore; she’s been doing it to him since they met but still it every time it happens it touches him deeply and makes a warmth blossom up in his chest.

Her lips look incredibly soft. He could just lean and kiss her, it’s a want he can’t ignore anymore, she won’t push him away, and in fact she looks like she wants it as much as he does.

He could just…

A sudden noise above them makes them both jump, Tina’s eyes widen with alarm and grabbed him by the wrist pulling him after her as the tree like book selves start moving around and trying to crush them into paste.

Maybe later then.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this. I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> I love Newt and Tina's relationship, they're quite different people and yet at the same time they are very similar in a lot of ways, especially their thought processes. For example they both refer to tweezers as "Thin little pointy things" I love very much. I think they are both a little insecure about each others feels toward them but this helps them get over it. 
> 
> Did I miss a kiss between them- Yes I did but slow burn.
> 
> Your Comments and Kudos are as always deeply appriciated


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